Crimson Curse
by Dave2380
Summary: Juggernaut, candy, the Professor gunning his hoverchair for freedom before the Crimson Curse descends! Daft and slightly tongue in cheek. Read and find out why i've done such a crappy summary.


Author: Dave2380

Ditribution: only please.

Feedback: Is good, gimme!

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-men, they belong to Stan Lee and Marvel Comics. I make no profit from these fics. Please don't sue me.

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Crimson Curse.

Charles Francis Xavier was the strongest telepath on earth, his telepathic shields forged in the bloody strife of the Korean war were the psionic equivalent of magnetically shielded sealed blast doors. Better to protect him from the random thoughts of others. However, being a savvy and smart individual who had survived many an attack , he had learned to keep his perceptions open just enough to get a feel for general emotional states. So it was with a degree of alarm that he registered a very particular emotional state from no less than five sources on the premises.

The colour blanched from his face as he recognised this particular sensation, not again, oh no no no, he wasn't facing this again if he could avoid it. Opening his mind he relayed a message to Cyclops aka Scott Summers. " _Scott, wake up, I have business to take care of in the city, I require your services as a driver. Try not to wake Jean."_

A sleepy wave of assent from Scott had Charles gunning his Shi Ar hover chair as fast as he could manage it to the garage, as far as he was concerned the more distance he got from the mansion, the better.

*****

Having lived with the Professor since the age of seventeen, Scott had learned to recognise his various mental moods, the communication he had just received had had more than a hint of urgency about it. Taking care not to awaken his gorgeous flame haired wife, Scott got up , dressed and shaved quickly. He was just grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl in the Boathouse's kitchen, when he noticed the calendar on the wall had a horizontal line running through today and the next five days. Suddenly he wasn't so hungry anymore and put the apple back in the fruit bowl before leaving the boathouse quickly and quietly, before breaking into a full on sprint to the garage. If he was right then he knew why the Professor was in a hurry.

*****

Jubilee woke up early, which quite frankly did nothing for her mood, she was definitely not a morning person, believing that " Only psychopaths and binmen should be up at this time. One of the reasons for her early awakening were the vicious stomach cramps she was suffering. " _Oh, THAT." _she thought and feverishly rummaged in her nightstand, hoping against hope that she still had some painkillers, aspirin, Tylenol, midol, anything! Her mood began to blacken as she realised she was out of painkillers and the vicious cramps were, if anything getting stronger. Loosing a string of epithets so foul that Wolverine would cringe and trailing incandescent pafs behind her, she headed to her en suite, stripping as she went, a hot bath would at least make her feel more human before she had to dismantle the mansion in her search for painkillers.

*****

Hank was up early, although he could also argue that he was up late, having spent most of his night working on the ever perplexing viral matrices of the Legacy virus. Having decided to eschew yet another nights worth of sleep he had instead set up camp in the kitchen, with the last of the mansions coffee in his mug and the last scraping of Ben and Jerry's fudge brownie ice cream he felt almost human. This was before he looked out of the window and saw the sky, the normally blue placid space of Storm's microclimate bubble was a raging seething mass of dark surging clouds. _"This does not bode well methinks."_

Almost as if punctuating his words there was a sudden mental pressure that repeated itself a moment later, with an almost undetectable variance on it. Hank suddenly remembered when this had happened before and wondered if he could make it out of the mansion without running into any of the girls.

No such luck.

Betsy wandered in, looking like hell, damp purple hair hanging out of a rapidly unwinding towel turban, a thick black bathrobe tied securely shut and a hot water bottle clutched to her stomach_._

Her voice when she spoke wasn't it's usual upper class English drawl, it had a rasp and edge to it that Wolverine would envy. " Henry, is there any coffee?"

" No."

" Coke?"

" Afraid not, Bobby finished it last night."

" Tell me we at least have some Ben and Jerry's?"

" Not anymore."

With every negative response Betsy's mood darkened, her Lavender eyes seemed to glow and that mental pressure seemed to grow.

" This is rather important Henry, do we at least have any painkillers?"

" I think we're out of those as well."

Just for a second there was a butterfly shaped corona of Psionic energy hovering in front of Betsy, Hank gulped, and taking advantage of her momentarily distracted state ran out of the kitchen to the security of his room with the big solid lock on the door, where he prayed that the grouchy pms ridden X- Women wouldn't find him.

Back in the kitchen, Betsy refilled her hot water bottle and began rummaging feverishly through cabinets and drawers in search of painkillers, chocolate or caffeine. Snarling and cursing as she worked.

*****

Logan had been on a walk throughout the mansions grounds, one of the few places left where he could smoke due to Hank's anti smoking in the mansion rule. He had planned on hitting the kitchen, but after watching Betsy rummage insanely through the kitchen and screeching like a demented fishwife from hell he decided to get the hell out of dodge.

He did fleetingly consider trying to warn Remy, Bobby and Peter but decided to get out as soon as his healing factor augmented legs could get him to his bike in the garage. Moving with every iota of stealth that he'd picked up in his lifetime he headed for the garage and freedom before the girls could inflict the ultimate horror upon him.

*****

Jean woke up, and immediately wished she hadn't, vicious stomach cramps, debilitating migraine, the feel of Betsy, Jubilee, Rogue and Storm all sharing her symptoms and thereby amplifying them was profoundly irritating. The furniture in the boathouse began to thrum and vibrate as Jean momentarily lost control of her TK.

This simply wouldn't do, Jean had heard about the last time the X-Women had all synchronised, from all accounts the Australian town they had been based in had been lucky not to have been vaporised. And that was when she hadn't been on the team.

Linking with Betsy and Jubilee, she realised the mansion was out of the necessities, so she'd have to go find one of the boys and "persuade" them to go on a pad run.

*****

Free! Motorbike surging beneath him Logan exulted in a narrow escape from the ultimate horror of the Pad run, he shuddered at the memory of the last one, no matter, he was free. He'd head to the city and hide out for a week, or see if Fury could fix him up with a Hydra raid or seven, just til things calmed down back home.

*****

By now, Charles and Scott had set up camp in the Coffee a go go, and were determined to stay well away from the mansion for the first day of the Crimson Curse as these synchronisations were referred to.

It was unfortunate, mused Charles but at the end of the day he had managed to get himself and Scott out of the firing line, and woe betide anyone who got on the side of a bunch of X-Women with pms.

Looking out of the window he noticed the sky darkening and sighed, clearly Ororo was now awake.

*****

Ororo woke up, to a splitting headache and cursed vigorously and fluently in Kenyan, muttering under her breath, and with static discharging from her hair, she glided over to her wardrobe and shrugged into a thick deep blue dressing gown and snatched a hot water bottle from the top shelf. On the way out of her attic, she grabbed her stash of willow bark tea. Judging by the unusual amount of psychic static, she was willing to bet the other X-Women were also in a certain condition. Muttering all the while she stomped downstairs taking a perverse delight in the noise.

*****

Bobby had recognised the warning signs and flatly refused to leave his room, nothing Jean said would get him to come out, finally losing all patience she telekinetically picked the lock, and shattered his defensive ice walls.

" Robert Louis Drake, how can you be so selfish? Every woman in this house is crippled with her menstrual cycle and you won't even go to the store to pick up the supplies that will help us, and incidentally stop us from hating all men?"

" Well when you put it like that I sound like a total douche." Groused Bobby as he cautiously stepped out, only to see Rogue dragging Remy behind her by his ear. He was just about to giggle when he saw Jubilee herding Peter and Betsy dragging a vainly protesting Hank.

He sighed and they all trudged to the Living room for their mission briefing.

*****

Shakespeare's three witches from MacBeth had nothing on the X-women as the five of them stood slightly hunched in warm thick dressing gowns, clutching hot water bottles and scowling as they sipped Ororo's herbal tea. Woe to he who would deny these harpies.

Jubilee was still trailing incandescent pafs, that flickered in and out of existence. Ororo's hair resembled nothing so much as a dandelion clock on the point of exploding, Betsy's psionic butterfly kept flickering in and out of existence, Rogue was muttering to herself constantly and looking at her gloves with more dislike than normal and Jean, well the entire living room was vibrating around her.

They glared at the guys, a cloud of hormone induced rage almost visibly palpating around them. Jean directed them.

" Painkillers, Chocolate, Soda, Ice cream, Coffee, Tampons, Maxi pads, the latest Vogue, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire and Time. Heavy on the painkillers and food, and for gods sake hurry before we lose it completely.

The guys shared one extremely nervous look and one equally nervous thought, "_ This isn't losing it?"_ They ran for it as soon as the girls had finished talking and piled into Logan's pick up truck.

*****

The Juggernaut watched as four slightly pale, nervy members of the X-men hurtled out of the Mansions grounds, odd how even the Beast looked pale, no mean trick what with him being blue and furry. Cain dismissed it from his mind and waited fifteen minutes, just to be sure he had a little extra time. Safely shielded by the helm of Cyttorak, he never felt the psionic tension hovering in the air, nor did he pay much attention to the ominous, black pendulous clouds.

You could almost feel sorry for him, if you didn't know that he was out to trash the mansion and beat up Charles if he got the chance. Almost but not quite.

*****

The perimeter alarms went off and the X-women all cursed simultaneously, even as Jean and Betsy both muttered Juggernaut. His mind may have been shielded by his helm, but the awful seething sentience of Cyttorak trapped in the gem bonded to him identified him as surely as any mind scan would.

Jean growled as she headed out to the Mansions front door.

" I'll only say this once Cain, turn around or we'll lay a major pounding on you.

" Cute outfit, the water bottle some kind of accessory for this season?" Mocked Cain, until the other X-Women emerged.

" Aw lookit the sisterhood of the travelling hot water bottles!" He started laughing.

Storm's lightning strike lanced from the sky in a pillar of argent blue-white light.

" Laugh that one off." She muttered as Jubilee began hurling her incandescent pafs at Juggernaut, aiming for his eyes, as more and more pillars of lightning crashed into Cain, disorienting and confusing him. The cumulative lightning strikes began to heat up his armour, and Rogue was on him like a shot, punching out her frustrations on his red hot armour, weakening the seams where his helmet was welded on.

The lightning blasts continued as did the pafs, keeping Cain off balance whilst Jean's TK kept churning the ground below his feet, keeping him perpetually unsteady, until finally Rogue's assault on Cain succeeded in dislodging his helmet.

Linking their minds and powers, Betsy and Jean psionically slammed Cain with their groups, headache pains and stomach cramps, and all the little nagging aches of a menstruating woman, all the while Storm bombarded him with Ball lightning to avoid hitting Rogue, and Jubilee kept up her distraction with the pafs.

Finally Cain succumbed to the psionic onslaught and passed out. Stopping for a moment to gather their breath and curse a little the X-Women began to gather their powers. Storm began generating a small tornado as Rogue and Jean combined TK and main force to hurl him into the air. That accomplished Storm revved up the tornado and with a little TK boost from Jean, sent Cain flying out past Spuyten Dyvil cove and into the sea.

*****

Meanwhile the boys had arrived at the store and began to argue about the division of labour, Bobby called ice cream, unsurprisingly enough. Hank called painkillers, which left Remy and Peter arguing over who would go down the dread Panty pad aisle.

" Nyet."

" C'mon homme, help Remy out, he got a rep to protect."

" Nyet, is not going to happen."

S' il vous plait, mon frere?

" Nyet, No, Nada, Nein. I will get provisions happily enough, but you will deal with the sanitary products."

Beast growled under his breath. " Gentlemen, you do realise we have five very pissed off female mutants awaiting these items impatiently, so get to it, Peter get the snacks, Remy Etienne LeBeau, for once in your life do as your bloody told !"

*****

It was a sullen and grumpy group of X-men who returned to the Mansion to find a smoking crater on the lawn, and a rather mangled helm of Cyttorak.

They pasted on their smiles, dropped all the supplies off at the kitchen and put them all away, and legged it before the premenstrual five could lay down a Juggernaut sized smack down on the men folk.

*****

Back in the city, Charles received a message from Jean. "_ It's safe to come home now sir, and if you'd be so good to bring back my husband I would be very grateful. Incidentally we had a little trouble with your half brother. You might want to hire a gardener."_

_Charles grimaced at the flood of mental imagery that Jean sent along with the message and prayed it would be quite some time before the girls synchronised again._

_FIN._


End file.
